


braided bonds

by shizuumi151



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Attraction, Bickering, Canon Compliant, Denial, Fluff, Hair Braiding, Hair Brushing, Ignorant Mutual Pining, Insults, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:35:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29480043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shizuumi151/pseuds/shizuumi151
Summary: Being good with hair gets you being even better with women. At least, that's Kojiro's logic as he tries to get Kaoru to help him out.
Relationships: Nanjo Kojiro | Joe/Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom
Comments: 21
Kudos: 599





	braided bonds

“No, you hulking gorilla.”

It’s past Sia la Luce’s closing time, and neither of them have beefs scheduled at the SK8 track tonight. The moon is high and white outside while Kaoru sits the counter, dressed prim and proper from his day job as Carla charges by the outlet on the floor on the side. But his arms are crossed and his frown is ill-tempered, a shade more so than usual. Kojiro starts to wish, not for the first time, that there was some partition between the kitchen and counter when his head swivels on his neck in a beleaguered pivot, his expression tired.

“Aw, c’mon, you stupid Four-Eyes!” he says, throwing up an arm in disbelief. Kaoru doesn’t budge, like the child he is, and Kojiro deflates like worn bagpipes when he sighs. “How stingy can you get? I even said I’d treat you to a whole dinner and everything—anything you want from the menu!”

The look Kaoru shoots him over the edge of his fan is appraising, but not lacking warmth entirely. “…Is it a full course meal?”

“…I mean…” Kojiro squints, uneasy as he rubs his neck. “Main and dessert?”

His gaze freezes over again from behind his glasses. Kojiro has to bite back a swear.

“Two-course. Then dessert.”

“ _Hey._ ” Kojiro braces the counter with both hands when he leans over to Kaoru, baring his teeth at the _audacity_ of the money-grubbing man who is his childhood friend by sheer technicality. “You think these muscles pop up overnight? I got bills to pay for this _restaurant_ , which I use to make a _living_.”

“I like how you think there’s any use in bargaining with me, you brainless baboon.” Kaoru doesn’t even hide his scoff behind his fan. “Unlike you, I know exactly how much my time is worth.”

“Least I know how to make a deal sound remotely appealing, you AI-loving prick!” Kojiro pushes himself back up off his counter, mussing up his hair, trying to get his thoughts back in order. “Besides, what the hell, I thought you _liked_ my dinners. Or you’d recommend Sia la Luce more than a couple of your bigwig clients to have some o’ my desserts, at least.”

“My tastes don’t matter; this is about demand, proper compensation, and _price_.” Kaoru’s fan shuts with a definitive snap, before he crosses his arms with a scowl. “Dinner from you is standard payment at this point, and for what you’re asking, I’m charging a premium.”

“You just _love_ being unreasonable, don’t you…” Kojiro clicks his tongue. “More than you love your stupid robot board, even.”

“You leave Carla out of this!” Kaoru gets to his feet, up in Kojiro’s face even as the counter divides them. “Apologise to her, you brute!”

“Like I’m apologising to a piece of metal, you moron…!!” 

Like a crack of a whip, Kojiro snaps back at him. He’s up in Kaoru’s space, too, ready for a showdown—but any further and he fears he’d get a concussion at how unbelievably hard-headed Kaoru’s skull would prove to be. Relenting, his tower of a body sags in a sigh, lowering the drawbridge as he rears back, crossing his arms.

“…Two-course dinner and dessert,” Kojiro mutters. “But the Chef Specials section’s off-limits.”

“Hmph.” The very breath Kaoru puffs out his nose is derisive when he glances aside. “Miserly.”

“You are the _last_ person on God’s green _Earth_ I want to hear that from…!”

* * *

Kaoru looks around at Kojiro’s sitting room in the apartment he lives in above Sia la Luce. Posters of black-and-white romance films are interspersed on the striped walls. Roses and greenery take up the corners of the space. The furnishing is all modern, Western, a far cry from any of the traditionally humble trappings of a Japanese home. The coffee table that Carla is charging on is accompanied by travel guides to Rome, Paris, and Madrid, along with volumes of cookbooks to match. No matter how many times he’s sat on it, he’s surprised that the chaise longue he’s sitting on has any sense of plushness to its body. 

He wrinkles his nose. If it were anyone else’s home, Kaoru would call the interior decoration a clear reflection of a bold cosmopolitan, unafraid of baring their romantic side in their aesthetic choices. But, since he knows it’s where Kojiro lives, he would call it kitsch; exhibits telling of the equivalent of an otaku obsessed with all things remotely European and Western that manages to pass as romance in the eyes of starry-eyed women who are none the wiser.

And it’s nothing like his bedroom when they were younger, which he had decorated much more tastefully.

Some of Kojiro’s clothes are even strewn haphazardly on the floor, including parts of his SK8 outfit. Kaoru wrinkles his nose even harder.

“Okay, everything’s set,” Kojiro says, voice mild as he steps out of his bedroom and into the lounge. He catches Kaoru’s withering look and rolls his eyes. “I told you, I don’t have time to clean this place up. If you’re so fussed about it, you can do it yourself.”

“Like I’d go within smelling range of your clothes by choice.” Kaoru stands to his feet. When he pivots towards Kojiro’s bedroom, it’s with minimal movement. “You’re lucky the dessert was good.”

“Ha!” The laugh Kojiro gives comes hurtling from the depths of his belly. “ _Lucky_. Sure. You tell yourself that, Kaoru.”

At that, Kojiro gives him a smirk, one that dimples his cheeks. One that isn’t quite the same as he one he mindlessly flashes to any lip-tinted woman willing to look his way, but injected with a similar enough confidence that it furrows Kaoru’s brow just from being within eyeshot of it.

“…I trust you cleaned up well?”

“Yup,” Kojiro flashes his palms at him, spinning his wrists so the back of his hands show. “Washed my hands thoroughly and everything. And, hey, what are you grilling me for about hygiene?” he grumbles, his frown as dry as bone. “I literally handle food every day.”

“Well, forgive me for making sure after I’m doing you a favour,” Kaoru snaps, his grip on his bicep a little harder than his usual bouts of annoyance afford him.

“Hey, okay, no need to get tetchy,” Kojiro says, his hands up again in defence. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I appreciate what you’re doing for me, honestly.”

When Kaoru looks back at him, it’s a wary, testing look he gives. But Kojiro is as sincere as he sounds. No hackles raised, not ready to put up a fight with him. It makes him able to relax a little, as he lets his arms drop from where they were crossed over his chest.

“…You should tell me I’m right more often,” Kaoru quips, almost as satisfied as when he had Kojiro’s panna cotta earlier in the night. “It’s an admission you sorely lack in your life; trust me.”

Kojiro immediately pulls a face, like he’s swallowed a lemon rind after regrettably sucking it dry.

“I’m surprised your glasses are big enough for your massive head,” he grouses, before he juts his chin to his bedroom, making way for Kaoru. “Now, come on. Sooner you help me out, the sooner we both get this over with.”

“This coming from the man who put us in this situation,” Kaoru gripes back.

“Could I buy your silence with a tiramisu or something? Is that at all on the table?”

“Oh, make no mistake—I would gladly ignore you free of charge, gorilla.”

“Yet you can’t just seem to put your money where your mouth is and shut up for once in your life, huh, four-eyes?”

“You ill-mannered oaf.”

“Pompous ass.”

“Cretin.”

“Moocher.”

They fall silent at the doorway to Kojiro’s bedroom, locked in a stare-off. They break eye contact at the same time, each kissing their own teeth as Kaoru walks further into the bedroom.

* * *

“So, uh,” Kojiro peeks over Kaoru’s shoulder from where he sits behind him, seeing the edge of his glasses past his hair, at best. “You sure I can just…go for it? No need for mantras, sutras, meditative rituals—anything beforehand?”

“What, you think I’m one of your flings you have to ease in first?” Kaoru casts a sharp glance over his shoulder. “Get on with it.”

Kaoru looks back ahead first. The exasperated look Kojiro gives to the back of his head is blistering.

“You know, if you had one remotely endearing bone in your body…” he sighs, gathering his brush, hairdryer, and hairbands on his side of the bed. “Just one—hell, even _cartilage_ I’d count at this point—you might do those girls tailing _Lord Cherry_ at least a fraction of some justice.”

“I’ll challenge you to a beef just so you never call me that again,” Kaoru grimaces, before he raises a lone eyebrow. “Also, does it really baffle you so much that some women are capable of _not_ preferring you over any other reasonable option?”

“That really wasn’t my point…” Kojiro huffs.

He sits cross-legged behind Kaoru, who sits in a perfect _seiza_ on his bed, and grabs a hairbrush in one hand, and a spilling of Kaoru’s long, fine hair in his other. The pink locks flow over his palms like water just when he cards his hand through to part and hold a section. When he focuses the hairbrush at the ends of his hair, thin as it is, the brush glides through like he’s trying to comb refined sand. He tries again with another section, his brow knotting with every stroke of the brush he uses on Kaoru’s hair.

“Do I even _need_ to brush your hair?” he mutters, a crease of disbelief at the corner of his lip as he brushes higher up, near Kaoru’s scalp. “What do you even do to get it like this?”

“Does it really matter?” he asks, brow arched mildly. “I have a routine I do to tend to it every evening.”

“Does it involve making several deals with the Devil?” Kojiro mumbles, before he gives a noncommittal, morbid sort of smile. “Or maybe beefs with Adam suffice for that.”

“Stick to your day job; dark humour doesn’t suit you.”

Kojiro bites the inside of his cheek. It counts for something that he’s likely the only person Kaoru knows who can make that quip and live to see another day. So Kojiro grants his response with a shrug before he continues his brushing.

“…I just use conditioner and do regular maintenance on it. Unlike you,” he turns back, looking unimpressed, “and that nest of a natural perm you have for a head of hair.”

“Hey, it’s a lot neater than it looks, you know. You can run your hands through it and it won’t get tangled.”

He demonstrates once, in a familiar stretch of his tricep and pec as he reaches up, threading his fingers through his curls, each one gently springing from beneath his fingers once they push further past his forehead. True to his word, his fingers comb through each lock in one, unbroken motion.

“See?” he drawls, before giving a grin—a lazy, proud one to accompany his proven point.

Kaoru eyes him blankly. Then, he plucks the brush from his hand, and passes it over his head once, from his widow’s peak upwards. The brush immediately meet resistance, slowing down past a couple of inches, before it gets caught in Kojiro’s hair entirely.

“Ow, ow, _ow—!_ ” Kojiro clutches at the brush and the arm holding it as he yelps. “ _Kaoru_ , let go of the…!”

He does so without preamble. He only waits and watches idly as Kojiro makes quick work of disentangling the brush from his hair in twists and turns of his wrists. The brush comes loose without a strand being sacrificed. The real loss, though, makes itself known when Kojiro scrambles for a hand mirror and his other hand pats down his hair. His parting showing his forehead is gone, replaced by a fringe skating just above his eyebrows, more wavy than curly. He looks a decade younger with the hair hiding his forehead, Kaoru mentally notes.

The broken cry of disbelief from Kojiro is also well worth the trouble; Kaoru barely even bothers to mask his smirk at it.

“What did you—?!” Kojiro grits his teeth, horror-stricken as his palm mashes onto the boyish-looking fringe till he musses it thoroughly.

When he uses his fingers to get his parting back and his hair obeys without more of a fight, he nearly melts onto the mattress from his sigh of relief.

Kaoru huffs. Kojiro whips a glare towards him. All Kaoru does is stick his tongue out at him before he turns forward again, and Kojiro is mere inches away from throttling the life out of him once and for all.

“...Immature little shit,” he settles for muttering, getting his brush back in Kaoru’s locks.

“You’re the one who likes to feel young again.”

“Just because I like to _feel_ young doesn’t mean I want to _look_ it, asshole. Least you could do is afford a similar level of courtesy to my hair like I’m showing yours.”

Kaoru hums idly. “I suppose you might deserve that much, yes.”

“Hey, I’m gonna kick you. I’m serious, Kaoru. There’ll be a footprint on your butt by the time I’m done with you.”

“The only thing you’re seasoned at is your desserts and empty threats.”

“Oh, _empty_ , huh?” Kojiro turns his shoulder around—brandishes his hairbrush like a dagger as it hovers dangerously close to Kaoru’s nose. “How’s _this_ for empty—another word out of you and you’re not getting _any_ desserts from me for a _week_.”

The last word settles with a note of finality, the bed of silence it rests in its fortress. Kojiro doesn’t break eye contact as Kaoru defiantly stares back at him. Then, the one crack in his carefully crafted poise for armour—

“…You wouldn’t.”

—The slightest dimple of his chin, when he flattens his lip. The one that only ever sees the light of day when Kaoru’s even remotely affected by something, and Kojiro fights off his growing grin.

“Oh, believe me, _Cherry_ ,” he says mockingly, inching ever closer to his deliciously distressed expression as his hairbrush doesn’t budge from its spot from his nose. “I absolutely _would_.”

Kaoru levels him a scathing glare, but Kojiro has developed something of a mental callous from his repeated exposure to him as a whole. It’s a fact they both know too well, when Kaoru merely removes his glasses and swiftly turns around, not saying a word further. Only then does Kojiro let out a mean little grin as he grabs his hair clips, hair ties, and starts getting to work.

* * *

If only Kaoru was usually so quiet. Kojiro thinks that a few times as he fiddles with giving him different hairstyles; it almost gives him the impression that Kaoru does possess that healing presence his clients like to compliment him on. Not that he can ever hear the words without gagging later in the privacy of his kitchen, or to Kaoru himself when his client has to take a call or a trip to the restroom. But with Kaoru kneeling with annoyingly good posture on his bed, and being blessedly quiet all the while, his beautiful pink silk for hair pouring from between his fingers, Kojiro could imagine Kaoru being a little beyond just a bearable presence in his life.

Well, it isn’t that bouts of silence _never_ took place between them. It’s just that every time such a bout was broken, usually by some innocuous comment Kojiro has to give, Kaoru seems physically incapable of responding like a pleasantly socialised human being. Always some quip or barb at the ready, whenever it came to nitpicking at whatever Kojiro said. That one is really a him problem, Kojiro decides.

His hair really was beautiful, though. That’s one thing Kojiro can’t stop thinking to himself.

It’s the whole reason he even bothered to ask Kaoru in the first place for this favour—being able to groom long hair would only see his popularity skyrocketing with the ladies. He’d been so focused on maintaining his masculine image that he overlooked something more refined, and very doable with increasing his sex appeal even further. The only thing he lacked was a willing test subject, as it were. Thus, unfortunately, did the only feasible candidate of one Kaoru Sakurayashiki come to mind.

Now, here he was on his bed, with his hair being done up in a long braid down his back.

Kojiro purses his lip.

There is one drawback to the silence that they have settled in, and that’s how loud Kojiro’s thoughts start to get when all he has to occupy his hands is Kaoru’s hair. Kojiro’s hands are nicely calloused from the workouts and conditioning he’s done to get his body into the state it is today, but even that doesn’t stop him from feeling how otherworldly soft Kaoru’s hair is between his fingers. It’s like how he recalls sand on the beaches of Italy to feel like, or downy feathers squeezed out of fine, dream-inducing pillows.

But there is one thing even more distracting than the way Kaoru’s hair feels against his fingers—the scent is intoxicating _._ Nothing overt, or even too noticeable—Kojiro likely wouldn’t have paid it a second thought if he weren’t literally sitting in its presence for more than 15 minutes. But it’s entirely comforting, yet rejuvenating in its woody notes. He’s been redoing one braid for nearly a minute from trying to figure out what the smell is.

“…Kaoru,” he finally mutters, pouting. “What shampoo do you use?”

“A mere drugstore brand. Nothing special,” he responds easily. The depth of his voice nearly startles Kojiro—he sounds sleepy, almost. “But I use a hair oil in my aftercare routine.”

“Yeah? What’s the…scent supposed to be?”

“Hm? Oh. Orange blossom.”

“Orange blossom,” Kojiro murmurs, sounding out the words to himself. “Orange blossom.” He makes headway on that tricky braid that’s been eluding him, finally. “So that’s what it was…”

Kaoru only affords a hum in response. Kojiro finally ties off the end of the braid, before he re-consults his mobile phone, full of hairstyles for him to choose from.

“…A crown…?” Kojiro’s smile takes on a wry edge. “I think you might like that a bit too much.”

“Whatever image you have of me, I can assure you it is entirely misguided,” Kaoru says. Not before his jaw audibly clacks shut with his lips. “…Not…that I would commit to that line too strongly.”

“Relax,” Kojiro says with a smile, chuckling. “You’ll get your desserts embargo-free for staying quiet earlier.”

“Oh. Well.” Kaoru goes quiet. Though the silence he falls into is quickly punctuated by a quiet huff. “Your kindness knows no bounds, your majesty.”

“Hey, watch it,” Kojiro clicks his tongue, smirking when he gathers some clips in hand. “Can’t ever just be happy with staying quiet, can you…?”

It’s telling how contrarian Kaoru loves to be, when he answers with a pointedly lengthy interval of silence. Kojiro has to hide a snort when he shakes his head.

* * *

“Can I look at it?”

Kaoru’s neck has never felt so cool, exposed to the air with all his hair bunched up on the back of his head. The only mystery is what it looks like. All he can surmise when he turns around is that Kojiro was staring intently at the back of Kaoru’s head. What’s worrying is that his lips are like two hydraulic presses mashed together. His bulky fists clenching on his lap is also something that inspires even littler confidence than Kaoru initially had in this whole affair.

“…No.”

“I’m sorry, let me rephrase that,” Kaoru says, faux-sweet, before he puts on a saccharine smile. “Let me look at it.”

“Ugh.” Kojiro pulls another face. He crosses his arms, looking down and away. “Don’t want you to.”

Kaoru has to blink for a moment. Lord knows that Kojiro is an immature one. But the way that his complexion darkens beyond his tan, his expression especially pouty, is something he hasn’t seen in maybe years.

But Kojiro doesn’t stop him when he reaches for the hand mirror, so Kaoru doesn’t quite care.

When he actually sees himself in the mirror, though, he has to take stock for a moment. He didn’t expect to feel so surprised, to have that feeling alone take him aback at what his reflection is telling him.

“It’s…”

The words die on Kaoru’s tongue. It’s gorgeous, in a word. The braids are quite thin, since Kaoru’s hair just is, despite its length. But even with the front of the royal crown braid he sees, even the strands of hair that Kojiro’s chosen to leave free looks artfully done. As much as he takes care of his hair, his hairstyles consist of either a high or low ponytail, with the details left to the breeze as it sees fit.

With this hairdo, Kaoru looks beautiful, and he feels baffled by that.

“…Half-decent,” he manages to say in the end, clearing his throat only slightly.

“ _No_ ,” Kojiro interrupts him, with as much petulance as it is possible to put into one syllable. “It’s gorgeous. Downright beautiful. A piece of art.”

Kaoru’s brow crumples together with his confusion, almost masking his sudden flush of embarrassment, which he promptly shelves away.

“You sound…awfully annoyed for that to be any sort of compliment.”

“Well… Well, yeah!” Kojiro throws his hands up. “It’s damn annoying, that’s what! I— _God_ , you—I should’ve never—!”

He stops mid-rant when his hands slide down his face, like he’s trying to pull the skin off it as he groans. It’s at this moment that Kaoru notices that the flush on his cheeks hasn’t left him yet.

Kojiro is bent over further with every unintelligible word he speaks, his face still in his hands, until he’s curled over completely with his face planted into his blankets. Kaoru is too busy blinking in his shock to say anything. It’s only when he catches another glance in the mirror—of his own startlingly flushed cheeks, and the faintest ghost of a smile that’s almost enough to send himself into a stupor—that he opts not to say anything, so Kojiro can stay looking away at him and commiserating over whatever he’s mumbling at that very moment.

“…Well,” Kaoru finally says, after a long spell of deliberation, when he puts his glasses back on. “Congratulations, then. Though, as surprisingly painless as this has been, I’m going to head back for the night, now.”

That gets Kojiro’s attention, when he sits up suddenly. Kaoru can see his confusion morph into a full-blown fluster in real-time when they lock eyes again. He narrows his eyes, if only to will himself not to stoop to Kojiro’s level of stupidity and nakedness over this, while he waits for a response.

“…I mean, I won’t stop you,” Kojiro says, after an embarrassingly long pause. “But that’s only the one hairstyle I’ve tried on you. We agreed to—”

“Do more styles, yes, I’m aware.” Kaoru’s shoulders roll with his sigh. “I have a commission to tend to, though, and this stylist streak you have can wait for another night, I’m sure.”

Kojiro stares at him, less dumbly than before. Kaoru waits again, holding his tongue, to his growing impatience. Or maybe second-hand embarrassment, which he mistakes for impatience. Or maybe he just doesn’t know what this antsy sensation is, that makes him want to regroup in the safety of his own home for the night.

“…Can I take a picture, at least?”

Kaoru’s eyes widen. “You…? _Why_?”

“Proof of my handiwork, I guess? I’ve seen hairstylists do it, when I visit ‘em.”

Kaoru’s brow furrows again—a natural occurrence when he finds himself in Kojiro’s presence. But he looks unnervingly earnest, even after he asks. Kaoru can’t even find it in himself to joke about it. He tucks a stray lock behind his hair, thinking, ignoring how he can feel Kojiro’s eyes following the motions of his fingers.

“…One from the back.”

“C’mon—front and back, at least.”

“ _Ugh_ , you gorilla of a—the _side_ and back, then.”

 _Focused on the hair, please_ , he’s tempted to say. But then that would imply that Kaoru is under the impression that Kojiro would take a photo of him for anything other than his hair at that moment. So, like the smart man he is, he keeps that very much to himself.

“Works for me.”

Kaoru looks decidedly away from the lens when Kojiro takes out his phone. He’s almost grateful for his inane habit of taking selfies, with how fluidly he snaps two photos of Kaoru up close before he pockets his phone.

“Welp!” Kojiro gives his thighs a resolute slap each, just as he gets to his feet. “Let’s get you outta here, then, yeah?”

Kaoru glances up at him. Kojiro’s smiling again. But it’s not his annoying, cocksure one he only shows the whatever gaggle of women he stumbles upon at a given moment. It’s a lot more…boyish. Silly. Unguarded. Himself.

Kaoru’s frown etches itself deeper into his features, as he finds that his thoughts are too many and too far and few in between all at once. In the end, he only opts to let out a sigh.

“Yes. Let’s.”

* * *

Kojiro sees him and Carla off from his door. Kaoru insists he doesn’t need to be walked home, on account of being a grown man, as well as his flat being less than a five minute walk away.

It’s true that out of their dynamic, Kaoru’s much more the type to worry than he is. Yet Kojiro does make sure to watch him go, however, as Carla’s tell-tale pink glow grows fainter the farther Kaoru skates away. The subtle clattering of Carla’s wheels against the road are the only sounds peppered through the night, save for the sea wind and crashing waves down at the shore. The moon is a dollop of light in the sky, illuminating Kaoru fully as he rolls away.

He knows it’s not purely concern for his friend, as he studies Kaoru leaving from behind. Not when he looks like the most beautiful being to grace this side of Japan, with his hair done up like a celebrity’s, or royalty’s. He looks like he would put paid models to shame, from behind, at least.

Kojiro pulls out his phone with a grimace. When he sees Kaoru’s side profile with his hair done up on his screen, he sees the last vestiges of a frown and the faintest hint of colour tinting his cheeks as Kojiro took his photo, with his gorgeous hair framing his breath-taking face.

His looks could easily outdo models even from the front, and Kojiro feels like he’s going to go insane.

“Stupid Kaoru,” he grumbles to himself. His thumb jabs the ‘favourite’ button with vexation—the heart icon goes red before he ruffles his own hair with a long sigh. “I better go look for some more hairstyles to practise.”

He turns on his heel to head back into his apartment above Sia la Luce, looking back down at the photo showing off the back of Kaoru’s head, then the one where Kaoru let him capture his face.

Meanwhile, when Kaoru examines his hairstyle in his bathroom back at home, he finds himself not quite smiling. Yet not quite frowning either. He distantly recalls feeling similarly when his mother complimented his calligraphy for the first time. Or when Kojiro marvelled at the ollie he’d shown him, way back when.

Bashful is the word for it.

“Carla,” he says, finishing getting ready for bed. “Search up sleeping positions that disturb a person’s head and hair the least.”

“Yes, master,” Carla affirms, before her body pulses with a notification light. “You have 1 new message from Kojiro with an attachment.”

“Incapable of leaving well alone, is he,” he murmurs, before he picks up his smartphone to open the message.

— _im thinking we do this one for tmw night - thoughts?_

Attached is a screenshot featuring a model’s long, dirty blonde hair tied up in a lace braid updo tied in a bun, according to the website’s headline included in the picture. It looks quite pretty. Kaoru doesn’t associate himself so boldly with things that are quite pretty, as he types back a reply with his thumb.

— _Sure._

He leaves it at that. Or means to, at least, until his phone buzzes with another notification from Kojiro. Of a kissy-face emoji. Kaoru’s cheeks heat up as his expression contorts into one of unbridled indignation.

He sends three walking ape emojis to Kojiro. When he answers back with a censored swearing emoji, Kaoru can finally go to sleep in peace.

“Information on sleeping positions to preserve hairstyles now loaded, master,” Carla chimes in from his bedside; Kaoru nearly startles from her announcement. “Would you like to receive the instructions for it now?”

Kaoru looks at Carla. Glances at the four new swearing emojis Kojiro’s sent him. Thinks for a beat.

“Give me a moment.”

* * *

“The stupidest, ugliest, _least_ endearing thing on the—”

Kojiro’s phone pings with a notification, making him sit up from his bed. He’s unsurprised when he notices from the lock screen that it’s from Kaoru. What does surprise him is the attachment of a photo, which confuses him before he swipes the message open.

It’s a picture of Kaoru, taken from a high angle. He’s in his pyjamas, his glasses off as his face is seen from the front, the phone positioned up high so the braids of his hair can be seen. The gold in his irises are striking, with the photo quality that comes through on his resolution. Kaoru’s lips are slightly parted, too, because why wouldn’t they be? But Kojiro doesn’t even realise his breath is caught in his throat until he sees the text that accompanies the picture, saying:

— _I’ll keep this hairdo for my appointments tomorrow. You can thank me later._

Kojiro’s whole bed flinches when he trust-falls back onto it. His phone is still in his hand and his forearm covers his face, his whole expression scrunched up like the sun is in his eyes even though midnight is fast approaching. He looks again at his phone screen once, before his arm flops back onto the bed again. His face is hot, as it always is when the muscles are strained from yelling at or angrily whispering or doing anything remotely related to Kaoru Sakurayashiki. But there’s another sensation of his lips curling ever-so-slightly upwards on his face, when he lets out a long, bone-deep sigh.


End file.
